CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study Human life
cannot be separated
from the existence
of a work
of art, and literature
is a work of art that uses language as its media. Literature is one of the most
creative and universal ways of
expressing the emotions, spirituality, and intellectual concerning humankind. Literature is the
coloring of one’s imagination in an attempt to
make sense of
one’s lives. Literature
itself has been
traditionally classified into three
genres; prose, poetry, and drama. Each genre still has subgenres and one of the
subgenres of prose is novel. In
Mastering English Literature, Richard Gill states that a novel is a world specially made in words by
the author(1985:77). Peck and Coyle stated
that novels present a documentary picture of life.
Alongside the fact that novels
look at the people in society, the other major characteristic
of the genre
is that novels
tell a story.
Most novelist focus
on the tension between individuals and the society in
which they live, and the novelist tell and describe
the social life
and society, Peck
and Coyle, (1984:102).
The novel basically
can portray the
reality of everyday
life, because they
can be used
as a document to study issues in society. The
novelists themselves might have inherited a recording of reality that made an impression
on them and chooses to expand it into a literary work
of art, splashed
around in a
canvas what will
eventually turn into a
living masterpiece.
In relation
to the focus,
the phenomenon of
feminism has become
a major subject in today’s society since it rose up in
the nineteenth century. Feminist theory now
aims to question gender inequalities and to cause change in areas where there
are differences of power in gender and
sexuality. The real questionrelated to feminism might not be ‘what is feminism?’but why have
women not been treated as equals and what
has been the source of men’s prejudice against women? Feminism has argued that
women are basically
useful as men
on the basis
that there are no
differences between men and women. However in this context, Nugroho
(2008:62) have stated that this is not
biological or sexual difference but more of a cultural construction. Any form
of stereotyping, objectification, breach
of human rights,
or gender/sexualitybased
oppression is a feminist issue.
The issues of feminism can be
based on many aspects but in this study linking to
the literary source
that is being
analyzed, the issue
is mainly based
on women’s role in society and how particular oppression
is put on them and affecting their life.
The Bell
Jar consists of this
issue where women
experience a situation
where they feel
like they don’t
belong to a
certain society because
of the various
social oppressions that is forced
on them. The reality that we live in now still consists of these kinds of problem where there occurs a
conflict between a women and herself about
what she wants to do in life but instead the society around her chooses the
life she should be living. These things
might not occur very often nowadays because we have
already entered the
modern era where
women are successful,
but to some women’s
experience there are struggle and pressure for her to live the life she truly desire. The society forces her to do what they
want.
Feminist literary
criticism focuses on the struggle
of women to
free themselves from the
domination of patriarchal culture. Looking more into the power of
feminist critique it
is clear that
there is no
separation between literature and the
society therefore literary works should
be studied along with its cultural context.
The Bell Jar is Sylvia Plath’s first novel
that went on to become a shocking, realistic
and popular novel. It is actually a semi-autobiographical novel based on her own life experience but she used different
names and places. The book shows many reference
to real people and events in Plath’s life distorted through the glass of a
‘bell jar’. It was first published in
London in 1963 by William Heinemann Limited. Sylvia Plath used the pseudonym Victoria Lucas, this
is because she did not think it was a ‘serious
work’ and she also worried that the people close to her might be offended by the personalities she included in the book. In
fact, Plath had put so many details of the people's real lives into The Bell Jarthat
"they could never look at each other again", and that it had caused the breakup of her
marriage and possibly others. The story is written and takes place in New York and Boston
in the 1950s where in America at the time
still had a defined role for men and women. The society had been stuck to this idea
that it affects
the main character
and her journey
of becoming someone
she desires. It
was also the time in
America where women
were trying to
step up their social status.
The book tells
the events of
what the main
character ‘Esther Greenwood’ experience in a time period of six
months and is told directly from her point
of view. She struggles to face society that gives her problems as well as
struggle to live by the existing
constructed social norms and traditions.
Plath told the reasons for
writing The Bell Jar to her mother, “What I've done is to throw together events from my own life,
fictionalizing to add colour-it's a pot boiler
really, but I think it will show how isolated a person feels when he is
suffering a breakdown.... I've tried to
picture my world and the people in it as seen through the distorting
lens of a bell jar".
She also stated
her novel as
"an autobiographical apprentice work which I had to write in order
to free myself from the past".
Plath’s The Bell
Jar does not only
tell about the
social oppression towards women,
but it is
also a portrayal
of social realities.
Novel is a
work of art
which enables us to enter into
the world that is created by the writer and can feel what the writer
want to express
about the writer’s
own life. It
shows how Plath
herself has experienced as her character in the novel.
Esther falls into mental breakdown just the same
as Plath's own
experiences that underwent mental
depression. Although the ending
is different, Plath
chose to end
her own life
whereas Esther’s life
will be determined by the readers how she will
continue it.
In this study, the writer wants
to explain that novel is one of the most effective tools in presenting certain problems or ideas.
Novels can also bring certain messages and
hidden intentions from the author or certain social situations. The Bell Jar is
one of the countless novels launched in
the world of literature that has touchedso many aspects of reality from its intrinsic sides
and also its extrinsic. This study is hoped to send
a message or
a lesson for
women living in
society. Sylvia Plath
has not only transferred
her own life’s reflection “through the distorting lens of a bell jar” in the novel but she has made readers enter her world
and mind, we can understand what she thought
about the society.
1.2 Problem of the Study Based on
the topic and background of the study, the writer tries to formulate the problems of the study: 1. How does social
construction decide everything for women’s life? 2. What are the struggles of
the Esther Greenwood in facing social oppression? 1.3 Objective of the Study The purposes of
this study are: 1. To describe how social constructions decide everything for
women’s life.
2. To explain the struggles of
the Esther Greenwood in facing social oppression.
1.4 Scope of the Study In doing
an analysis, it
is necessary to
limit the focus
that is going
to be analyzed in order that the study is not out
ofcontext.
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